I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.

I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.